


Orange

by MEOW_I_am_a_cat



Series: Colors [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Color AU, Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Kinda Fluffy, M/M, Soulmates AU, kinda angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 15:54:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5054806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MEOW_I_am_a_cat/pseuds/MEOW_I_am_a_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to Grey<br/>--<br/>Love isn't always perfect. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's messy, sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's... orange.<br/>--<br/>“Let’s go color the world together.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orange

**Author's Note:**

> I'M BACK. Finally. So here is the long awaited sequel to "Grey."  
> \--  
> For once, my only warnings are literally a single mention of sex.

“Let’s go color the world together.”

Phil grips Dan’s hand and pulls him through the crowd, trying to find the exit.

Stumbling about in their slightly-intoxicated state, they manage to find a way out of – Well, neither of them really knew whose house it was – and call up a cab.

The time between the party and Phil’s building passes in a blur. It feels like time is crawling along at a snail’s pace, but going faster than physically possible. Every moment lasts forever, yet is done even before the blink of an eye.

Eventually – or, much faster than the trip should have been – the pair fall out of the car after Phil hands the driver some notes. Dan gazes in wonderment at the car as it speeds away.

“Blue?” he whispers, mystified.

“Blue,” Phil affirms.

That night, they find out that sex is purple and the cuddling after is pink. Both of them think it’s beautiful.

Except something’s missing.

It’s not noticed until a month into the relationship; both were too involved with each other and all the new colors to notice that one was missing, some things were still grey.

“Hey, is that bowl supposed to be grey?” Dan asks one morning when Phil hands him a bowl of cereal, a week after he officially moved in.

Phil furrows his brow at the ceramic dish. “I don’t  _think_ so,” he says. “But what are we missing out on? Why hasn’t it shown up yet?”

Dan shovels a spoonful of the cereal into his mouth while he thinks. “Okay, blue and brown were first, and that was meeting each other. Then red from touching, and green from kissing. The hug was yellow, sex was purple, and spooning was pink. What are we missing?”

“Orange!” Phil blurts out. “Orange is still left.”

“But what could orange _be_? We’ve gone on formal dates, so it’s not that. What haven’t we done?”

Phil just responds with “I don’t know,” and they leave it at that. It’s not talked about again, but they still say “the orange bowl,” even though neither can see that it _is_ orange.

  
  


A year after that first night is the first fight.

It’s something stupid, really. Dan knows that if he’d been able to form stable relationships before this he’d know how to deal with it. Phil trying to react rationally proves it. And yet, Dan’s the one shouting over arbitrary nonsense and Phil’s patience is the one wearing thin. Soon enough, they’re both screaming at each other and neither can remember what started this. Was it that Phil forgot to clean the bathroom this week? Was it that Dan hasn’t done the laundry yet? Either way, it had quickly turned into a shouting match, each yelling the other’s flaws and failures at the other.

It’s when Dan storms out, saying something about how he can’t deal with Phil any more at the moment, that Phil leans against the kitchen counter, biting his lip and thinking, staring at the dirty dishes in the sink, and he realizes.

Orange.

The bowl is orange.

Fights are orange.

Anger is orange.

Sadness is orange.

Contact was red and yellow, love was green and pink. Lust was purple.

And anger, fighting, crying, that was orange.

Dan sees it too. The little flowers planted along the edge of the park across the street. The sign for the restaurant down the road.

He knows, without being told.

They’re orange.

He wants to cry. He wants to scream out and dig up the flowers and tear down the sign. He never thought he would hate a color, if he ever did see one. Even with everything but orange, the world was so beautiful, so colorful. But not all color is good. Not all parts of a relationship, even the most perfect, when you know they’re your soulmate, are good.

Dan hates it. He hates that feeling. Knowing that there’ll be fights, that orange exists.

He bows his head as he walks, not wanting anyone to see his face. He lets a tear fall to the ground, splashing against the cold pavement.

Dan had never understood why the phrase “feeling blue” existed. He knew it was from the Color, when everyone _had_ color, but no way of knowing their soulmates. Back when people speculated about worlds like the one they had now, where everything was black and white until you met your soulmate. And when scientists had found a way to modify humanity so these fantasies were possible, populations decided it was a sacrifice they were willing to make, and the world shifted to the Grey. But still, back in the Color, for whatever reason, people had decided that blue was sad. During Dan’s time with the colors, as short as it has been in comparison to the rest of his life, blue was anything and everything but sad. It’s appearance had been as happy as happy could be; it had signified finding true love. In the past year, it meant seeing his boyfriend’s eyes, lying on their bedspread, his favorite shirt on Phil, even the sky that shows it’s a wonderful day. It  happy and beautiful and despite keeping his first color of brown as his favorite, blue would always be a close second.

But orange. Just looking at the color now makes him feel a bit sick. It feels wrong. It was angry, mad. It infuriated him. But it also embodied the sadness he couldn’t help but feel being away from Phil. Knowing that the last thing he said to Phil was that he didn’t want to deal with him, didn’t want to see him.

He hugs the sweatshirt he had thrown on on his way out the door closer to his body, trying to envelop himself in the warmth, but the cold October air still bites at his face, turning the hot tears cold as they leave his eyes.

He looks up at the stores as he passes them. An orange pumpkin, carved with a stretched smile, stares back at him, in front of a Halloween display filled with the brightly colored gourds.

Dan turns around immediately, hating the color, and begins his return trip.

He spends the walk home looking down at the pavement again. The concrete showed him grey again, something he had grown to miss, especially by not looking at the hard pathway all that often.

But as much as he missed the color, he still hates it, nearly as much as he despises orange at the moment.

He hurries. He doesn’t look up. He doesn’t was to see orange. He doesn’t want to see the color ever again.

Why orange? Of all the colors, why orange? Why such a bright color that’s generally accepted as happy? Why something that’s nearly everywhere? Yes, his world is in full color now, but at what price, really?

He fumbles with the key when he reaches the door to their apartment, and slams the door behind him when he finally gets it open and inside.

“Dan?” he hears Phil call out.

Dan takes a shuddery breath. “Yeah,” he answers. He climbs the stairs up to the lounge where Phil is waiting on the sofa.

“You okay?”

Dan considers the question for a moment. He bites at his lip as it begins quivering, those simple two words bringing back the threat of tears once more.

“No.”

The tears fall. They aren’t blue, like the stereotypical sadness. They aren’t orange, either, though. Tears are, and have always been, transparent. They are neutrals. And this time, they aren’t sad. They aren’t angry. They’re just lonely tears, caused by Dan’s thinking he might’ve been better off never meeting Phil.

Phil jumps up from his seat, and wraps his arms around Dan. His fingers stroke through Dan’s hair, gently soothing the boy. His lips graze Dan’s forehead as he whispers words of affirmation.

“I love you.”

“It’s okay.”

“Calm down.”

“This doesn’t change anything.”

“I love you, Dan.”

Dan slowly stops shaking. Slowly, his grip on Phil’s t-shirt is released. He takes a few shuddering breaths before responding.

“I love you, too, Phil. So, so much. Orange will never change that. I love you.”

And everything’s good. Not perfect. No, because love itself isn’t perfect. There will always be fights. There will always be orange. But the orange doesn’t stop the blue or the brown or the red or yellow or green or purple or whatever. There are still times when they want to describe love as perfect, because in that moment it is. And orange can never change that.


End file.
